


Bullets

by hongbab



Category: VIXX
Genre: Heavy Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:03:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9778163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongbab/pseuds/hongbab
Summary: This time Hongbin’s bruises take more than just a few days to heal.





	1. Bullet #1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: intimate terrorism, violence, drug use and mentions of addiction, mentions of alcoholism, probably several mental disorders implied, things that might… look… dubcon…

_I know that I’d take one million bullets babe_  
_Yeah, one million bullets can come my way_  
_Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh_  
_But I want you to know that, I’d take a million babe_

 _How many would you take?_  
_How many would you take?_    
_How many would you take?_  
_How many would you take?_      
_Cause I’d take one million bullets babe_

Sia - [One Million Bullets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NTJrLGw87w)

 

 

 

Waking up next to someone who has a very important place in your heart is the happiest of things in this world—that is what Hongbin has been told all his life.

Except when they haven’t come back home since they left the night before, leaving you with unanswered phone calls and texts and anxiety flooding your chest like an enormous tsunami.

Hongbin hasn’t slept all night.

He looks towards the window—the curtain has long been ripped off during a particularly nasty quarrel—, seeing the dark sky outside, the sun nowhere near getting up just yet. Winter is cruel.

He rolls off the mattress that’s got worn uncomfortably thin during the last few years, spending some minutes lying on the floor, counting the cracks on the ceiling in the orange light of the street lamp that glares right into the flat. After the sixth crack, he climbs to his feet, and goes into the bathroom to take a shower.

It takes him quite a while to hide Wonshik's T-shirt he wore to bed in the laundry basket so Wonshik won’t find it, because he always gets angry when Hongbin steals his stuff. He will complain about Hongbin having thieved his best clothes, even if he didn’t wear them in months, even if Hongbin promised he would wash them immediately. Sometimes Wonshik becomes so outraged the neighbours threaten to call the police, but Wonshik always appears more dangerous than someone who’s easy to mess with, so they haven’t yet been to jail for Wonshik bellowing at Hongbin from the top of his lungs. Hongbin still has a fading bruise on his right shoulder from the last time they fought though.

He takes a last, worried look at the T-shirt that helped him get through the night without Wonshik, the thing that soothed him enough not to cry all night from missing Wonshik too much.

The plumbing got fucked up again, there’s no running hot water, so Hongbin showers in cold water for the second time this week, already feeling resistant to the pain the icy bullets cause on his skin. When he’s finished and steps in front of the mirror with the bare light bulb flickering above it, he notes how purple his lips got and how dark the circles under his eyes turned. Time for work, he thinks.

He dares not to sit down on the metro in fear of falling asleep, even though there are a lot of empty seats, considering it’s only half past six in the morning. He drags himself into the factory building, changes into his uniform, and occupies his standing spot by the conveyor belt, checking the half-finished scooter engines for any mistakes. The job is as unnecessary as it can be; everything is made using computers nowadays, there are hardly any faulty products—maybe one in every two thousand. Still, Hongbin stands there for ten hours straight with only an hour of lunch break, turning around the small engines on the belt with zero results, getting a sorry amount of salary that only covers half of their rent every month.

It’s better than nothing, Wonshik told him.

By the time he arrives at the petrol station he works part-time at, Hongbin is trembling from head to toe.

A shift from five to nine, and he’s only had a small sandwich for lunch—he’s feeling dizzy from hunger, but there’s just no time to eat. Wednesdays are the worst, he thinks while smiling unhappily at a customer on the other side of the counter. Wednesday is the only day when his shifts come one after the other, but he’ll live, Wonshik told him he was going to be okay, so he is. Wonshik is always right.

Wonshik hasn't called or texted him all day, and on his way home Hongbin clutches the handrail on the metro as hard as he can so he won’t collapse from the mixture of worry and exhaustion inside him. He’ll see if Wonshik's at home (he doesn’t really like to be bothered all the time with _meaningless_ messages and phone calls), and if he isn’t— well, if he isn’t, he’ll sit down and wait. He would wait for Wonshik forever.

Hongbin's heart almost jumps out of his chest when he steps into the flat and finds the few lights it has on, wanting to run into the bedroom, but finding his body too weak to do so. He takes off his shoes and coat and shuffles inside instead, noticing Wonshik sitting on the mattress with his laptop in his lap and his headphones on his head. He glances up at Hongbin almost curiously, like he’s silently asking what Hongbin wants from him.

“You came back,” Hongbin whispers, and though Wonshik can’t possibly hear him talk, he takes off his headphones, saying nothing. Hongbin hears his own voice shake as he says, “I was so worried about you.”

“Told you there’s no use worrying about me,” Wonshik replies dispassionately.

“You were gone,” Hongbin insists, a whine slipping out. “You didn’t tell me where you went, you never tell me where you go; you didn’t answer my texts. I’m so afraid you’ll be gone for good one day.”

Wonshik lets out a deep, irritated sigh, and sets his headphones and laptop aside. He stands up, walking languidly to Hongbin, stopping in front of him. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his too large-too ripped jeans, looking deeply into Hongbin's eyes.

“You’re drunk,” Hongbin says, the realization hitting him as soon as he notices how unfocused Wonshik is.

“So.”

Hongbin doesn’t really care. Wonshik drinks four out of seven days a week on average; he’s not always smashed, but that happens, too. He looks relaxed right now, but first impressions never matter when it comes to Wonshik.

“I just.” Hongbin takes a deep breath. “Will you tell me where you went?”

“No.”

“I missed you.”

“No use.”

Hongbin lowers his head, mentally forcing himself not to leap onto Wonshik and hug him close and cry on his shoulder, because Wonshik would just shove him away, he always does. But his backpack is yanked off him in the next second, Wonshik holding the back of his head as he kisses Hongbin roughly, tasting of bitter alcohol, hurting Hongbin—and it’s everything Hongbin wants.

Hongbin lets Wonshik rip his clothes off and push and pull him around according to his will, lets Wonshik throw him on the mattress so hard the wind gets knocked out of him, and he carefully scrapes Wonshik's scalp under his soft hair the way Wonshik loves it best. He lets Wonshik bite down on his chest and suck hickeys onto his stomach and stretch him with too little lube on his fingers. He does all of these despite the fact that he wants gentleness, he wants Wonshik to kiss his eyelids and caress his hair and say ‘I love you’. He’s not sure if his moans and groans are created by the need to be handled much more tenderly or the way Wonshik's fingers curl inside him, but Wonshik shuts him up with a kiss anyway.

Wonshik goes too fast and too raw; he takes Hongbin's legs and drags them up to his waist, ordering Hongbin to pull him in closer without words, and Hongbin obeys, back arching and head pressing hard into the mattress, panting loudly. Wonshik's fingers bite into his hips, he thrusts into Hongbin until his bony pelvis hits Hongbin's equally bony ass, the dull pain coursing through Hongbin's body, making him cry out. Wonshik leans over to nip at his lower lip and lick into his mouth before he pulls out.

“Get on your hands and knees,” he says in a deeper, huskier voice than usual—a tone that never fails to give Hongbin's libido a slight kick.

His limbs quiver like they’re ready to give up any second when Wonshik grabs his hips and thrusts back into him, getting louder with every move. Hongbin feels like he’s going to throw up: he’s incredibly nauseous from the sleep-deprivation and starvation and Wonshik using him like this.

There’s a cold hand on his back—Wonshik's fingers run up on Hongbin's spine, his palm lying flat on the back of Hongbin's neck for a second. Wonshik's hips still as his fingers wrap around Hongbin's throat, forcing him to release the mattress as Wonshik pulls him up, and Hongbin has to put his hands on the wall so he can support himself at least _somehow_. Wonshik mouths a trail up on his back, bites the thin layer of skin on his prominent shoulder blade, sucks on a spot at the base of his neck.

He holds Hongbin's body flush against his own and starts thrusting again. This time he goes slowly at first, his fingers tightening only the smallest bit around Hongbin's throat, but with each move of his hips he increases the strength of his grip, and soon Hongbin's voice cracks mid-whimper as he struggles for air, and, God, he’s so hard he thinks he’ll explode like the stars in front of his eyes—

Wonshik's other hand wraps around Hongbin's cock, finally, stroking him faster than he fucks into him, but it’s okay, everything is more than okay at this point. Wonshik’s body stutters and he cries out loud enough for the old lady next door to wake up and now start knocking on the wall with her fragile knuckles, yelling at them to shut up, but Hongbin doesn’t care, because as soon as Wonshik's hand leaves his throat he comes, tries to scream but only manages to cough while he fucks into Wonshik's hand, shaking so hard Wonshik needs to steady him.

Wonshik pulls out, and Hongbin twitches quite a few times as he lets go of the wall and attempts to stand up and leave for the bathroom. He needs to take a second to regain his balance and consciousness—Wonshik literally fucked him into oblivion and now he has no idea what was happening before the sex and what is supposed to happen now. Wonshik is already rummaging through his pile of clothes in the termite-eaten closet, digging up fresh ones before he goes to take a shower. Hongbin glances at the wall he’ll need to clean before stuff dries on it, and looks down at his knees that are dark purple from how his weight squeezed the blood out of them.

“Hey,” Wonshik says before he leaves the room. There’s a very smug smirk on his sweaty face. “You liked that.” He touches his own neck with his fingers.

It’s a statement, not a question—Wonshik doesn’t ask him about his preferences anymore—, so Hongbin doesn’t say anything, only acknowledges that yes, he did like that.

He likes everything Wonshik does to him, even if it’s the complete opposite of what he wants.


	2. Bullet #2

Hongbin wouldn’t even notice the strange group of people on their floor if it weren’t for the laughter.

It has been two years since he and Wonshik moved into the block, but strangely enough, Hongbin has never heard anybody laugh out loud in this place apart from himself and Wonshik, of course. (That might have to do with the fact that only the most desperate rent themselves a place in here.)

Two of the four young men are smoking, one of them enthusiastically talking about something—probably telling jokes, because the two who aren’t smoking start laughing again, while the fourth of them watches the storyteller with a soft smile on his face. They seem to be just about to move into the flat two doors away from Hongbin and Wonshik's, if the various pieces of furniture on the corridor are of any indication.

Hongbin stares a second too long, and one of the laughers, a guy with nice, glowing skin and a gentle face notices him.

“Oh, hello!” he greets, and all the others turn towards Hongbin, the funny guy frantically waving at him.

Hongbin averts his eyes, and tries to find his keys in his pockets while holding up a brown paper bag in which the measly amount of food he managed to buy sits, his blood pounding in his ears. He doesn’t really talk to anyone ever, except the customers at the petrol station and Wonshik, and anyway, Wonshik has always told him not to trust their neighbours.

His struggle ends with him accidentally dropping the grocery bag: the pack of rice, the cabbage, a bottle of milk and the meat all falling onto the floor. He feels his cheeks heat up as he crouches down to get his stuff back into the bag, but the things keep falling out of his trembling hands until he sees some shoes next to him.

“Are you okay?” the small faced guy asks, smiling kindly at him as he kneels down, taking the bag from Hongbin.

“We didn’t mean to scare you, sorry,” the funny guy grins as he picks up the milk and places it back into the paper bag.

“Now, _that’s_ scary, hyung,” a boy laughs, putting the rice back where it came from. He has light brown hair and a fleshy nose and the facial bone structure of a Greek god.

They all put the groceries back into the bag while Hongbin watches them with wide eyes, still crouching there like he’s afraid they would attack him. When the food is back in its container, the fourth guy (a tall, morose-looking young man with the cheeks of a baby—a weird combination) takes it from the ground.

“Do you want me to carry this inside for you?” he asks in a melodic, high-pitched voice.

_They’re all freaks. Last night I saw a bloke in a yellowed shirt with blood stains as big as my fucking head. Never trust them, these people here._

Wonshik told him not to trust the people in the block, but what is he supposed to do when he’s surrounded by them? They’re all smiling (minus the baby faced guy) and pretending to be kind—how could he get away from them, possibly together with the groceries? Where is Wonshik when Hongbin needs guidance?

“I’m fine,” he says, straightening. He takes the bag from the sulky one, intensely concentrating on turning the key in the lock. Once the door is open, he steps inside and locks the door after him immediately. He’s safe now.

That night he wakes up to movement on the mattress. He turns around to see what’s happening and finds Wonshik sitting with his brows knit.

“What’s wrong?” Hongbin asks sleepily.

“Can’t you hear that?” Wonshik grumbles, staring ahead.

“Hear what?” Hongbin sits up as well. “Wonshik, what—”

And then he hears it. The dully throbbing beat coming through the walls, the screams, and the laughter.

“Ah,” he says. “There are some new guys on our floor. They moved in today.”

Wonshik turns to him. “How do you know?” he hisses. “Did you talk to them?”

“No, I didn’t,” Hongbin shakes his head, lying as best he can so as not to anger Wonshik further. “I just saw them.”

“And why can’t they fucking shut up?” Wonshik growls to no one in particular.

“They’re probably celebrating their moving in.”

“As if there’s something to celebrate about that.” Wonshik stands up and tucks his feet into a pair of sneakers. “They should be celebrating when they move out of this place.”

“Where are you going?”

“To tell them to shut the fuck up.”

“But they aren’t even that loud,” Hongbin says, images of the guys helping him get his shit together in the afternoon flashing through his mind. He reminds himself that he isn’t supposed to trust them.

“I’m awake, aren’t I?” Wonshik snaps. “I can’t sleep because of them, so yes, they _are_ that loud.”

Wonshik strides out of the bedroom, opening the front door. Hongbin gets off the mattress and runs after him, too short shorts, torn T-shirt, naked feet and all. The music and celebration noises are a lot louder out on the corridor that runs along the walls of the building, inclosing the patio down there. The icy tiles burn Hongbin's soles as he runs up to Wonshik, clutching onto his arm.

“Go back,” Wonshik tells him, already ringing the doorbell, keeping his finger on it.

“But I—”

“I said _go back_ , Hongbin!”

Hongbin opens his mouth to protest, but then the door opens, and the funny guy beams at them.

“Hey, wanna join?” He notices Hongbin and tilts his head to the side to be able to see him half-hiding behind Wonshik. “Oh, you guys live together?”

Wonshik looks back at Hongbin and tries to shake his arm out of Hongbin's grip, but Hongbin only holds him tighter, pressing his forehead to Wonshik's back.

“I’m not here for a nice chat,” Wonshik says over the music. “I want you to stop being so fucking loud, all right?”

“Wow, rude,” the guy says.

Before either of them could say more, Hongbin hears another voice: “Is there a problem, Jaehwan-hyung?”

Hongbin peeks from behind Wonshik, seeing the Greek god faced boy beside the one who’s apparently called Jaehwan. His hair is a mess and his cheeks are rosy, he looks tipsy but still more level-headed than either Jaehwan or Wonshik. He blinks curiously at Hongbin.

“They think we’re being loud,” Jaehwan says.

“Sanghyukiiie, what’s taking— oh.”

The gentle faced young man pops up out of nowhere, looking the most wasted of the bunch. He smiles lopsidedly at Wonshik and Hongbin.

“Do you guys want to come in?”

“No.” Wonshik says firmly. “Just keep quiet, will you?”

“You’re the first person to complain though.”

It’s the grumpy guy, standing with his hands in his pockets, seemingly towering over the other three, no matter how much taller Sanghyuk is. He has a very strange aura surrounding him, the type that Hongbin doesn’t need to be told to avoid.

“That’s because all the tenants here are either dying or already dead,” Wonshik scoffs. “And you’ll be the same if you don’t fucking turn your shitty music off.”

Jaehwan and Sanghyuk laugh boisterously while the surly guy just smiles and the other one furrows his brow. Hongbin feels incredibly embarrassed for Wonshik even though he knows Wonshik probably doesn’t care about being laughed at. Wonshik is strong and doesn’t mind beating people up, but there’s the surly guy in this gang, and he looks like he could snap Wonshik's spine with just a kick to his waist. Hongbin doesn’t want them to hurt Wonshik.

“You just creep back into your hole and hope not to bump into us in the morning, okay?” the grumpy guy singsongs in his soft voice.

“Woah,” says Jaehwan, looking quite impressed.

“Taekwoon, don’t be an asshole,” the smallest man mumbles, looking down at his feet. He seems embarrassed as well, and for a moment Hongbin feels a connection between himself and the guy. But then he remembers Wonshik.

“He’s right though, Hakyeon,” Jaehwan replies, and then turns back to Wonshik who’s by now shaking—whether with anger or from the cold, Hongbin isn’t sure, but he himself can’t feel his legs anymore, not to mention his bare feet. Jaehwan arches an eyebrow. “If you guys are allowed to fuck so loud I have to calm the lady next door so she won’t call the police in fear of some kind of torturing going on, then we can listen to music as loud as we want.”

“Bunch of dickheads,” Wonshik hisses, and turns on his heel, finally able to shove Hongbin away and hurry back into their flat.

Hongbin stands on the four guys’ porch in his ripped, faded T-shirt and obscene shorts, cracking his knuckles, flushed to the roots of his hair, staring down at his purple toes.

“You, uh,” Sanghyuk says, and takes a tentative step closer—Hongbin can see his legs move. “Do you want some shoes or… slippers?”

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and Hongbin jumps back so fast he needs to grab the handrail so as not to fall off the corridor. He blinks up at the boys for a split second and whispers: “Sorry.”


	3. Bullet #3

This time Hongbin's bruises take more than just a few days to heal.

It’s mostly because of his own clumsiness (Wonshik has always told him he was near incapable of keeping himself alive, but he’s there for Hongbin, he will keep him alive—Wonshik's said that so many times), since he keeps bumping into doorframes and hitting his bruised arms into the towel rack, pressing the comb too much against his skull where it was smashed into the wall.

It was his fault, the entire fight—Wonshik clearly told him not to talk to the residents of the block, and yet he stood alone on the four guys’ porch and in the heat of the moment even apologised for something Wonshik was absolutely right about. Wonshik didn’t hit him when he got back into the flat, he would never ever hit Hongbin, but he did grab his arms and threw him against the wall and yelled at him and Hongbin cried and told him he was going to make up for his mistake. Wonshik lay back on the mattress then, but he was trembling, so Hongbin sat next to him and took his hand into his own, kissed his knuckles and whispered about Wonshik's actions being just. He leant over Wonshik to cautiously peck his cheek, and Wonshik let him kiss his mouth and his forehead, and Hongbin cried tears of joy.

It was worth getting bruised for this.

He’s taking the stairs to their flat when he hears the voices coming from the direction of the four boys’ flat. He stops in his tracks when he hears his own name, and he has no idea how they might know it. If Wonshik learns this—

“That poor boy, Hongbin… he looks so confused all the time,” someone sighs, and it sounds like Hakyeon's voice, but Hongbin isn’t sure. He peeks from the corner of the staircase, seeing Hakyeon and Sanghyuk outside, Hakyeon worrying his lower lip and nervously flicking the cigarette between his fingers. Sanghyuk stands leaning on the handrail, staring down at the patio. “It’s like he’s a helpless animal that that Wonshik guy keeps on a leash. I have no idea what’s going on between them. This is not love, Wonshik isn’t in love with him.”

“You worry too much about others, Hakyeon,” Sanghyuk says.

“You’re just as worried about him as I am. I can see it on you, Hyukie. When you offered him shoes—”

“That was—that entire scene was fucking absurd.”

“But it wasn’t pity,” Hakyeon says, “what I saw on you. It was different. You looked different.”

“I was just…” Hongbin watches Sanghyuk push himself away from the handrail and look up at the grey sky. “He looks so small. Something is so wrong. It’s like he’s completely dependent on Wonshik. He clutches onto Wonshik like a child.”

Hongbin can’t hear what Hakyeon says next. His heart is throbbing wildly inside his chest as he leans against the wall, trying to comprehend what the two just said. It sounds stupid—Wonshik loves him, he doesn’t keep him on a leash at all, nothing is wrong, he’s not _completely_ dependent on Wonshik. He loves Wonshik, yes, but people get crazy when in love, don’t they? Isn’t giving yourself up for the two of you to become one what you’re supposed to do in a relationship?

Wonshik told him once, several years ago when they just started dating that they would become one if Hongbin was strong enough to let himself go and they would be together forever like that. He’s not doing anything wrong.

He climbs the stairs, keeping his eyes on the ground while he walks to their door. Hakyeon and Sanghyuk greet him but he doesn’t even dare blink at them while he opens the door and flees inside.

He’s welcomed by bluish smoke floating in the air, seemingly drifting out of the bedroom. A second later he can smell the bitter, pungent, familiar scent that always makes his throat burn and his eyes become teary.

Wonshik is lying on the floor with his cigarette between his lips, some underground hiphop song serving as background music, coming from his old laptop’s speakers. He slowly turns his head towards Hongbin, a crooked smile making its way onto his face, and Hongbin can feel his heart flutter inside his chest at the sight. It’s so rare that Wonshik smiles at him. It’s so rare that he smiles at all.

“Come here, babe,” Wonshik says after he steadily exhales the smoke, his voice raspier from it than usual.

Hongbin happily obeys, lying down next to Wonshik, curling into his side when Wonshik draws him close with an arm. Hongbin rests his head on Wonshik's chest, listening to his heartbeat, being the happiest he’s been in a long, long time.

Wonshik offers him the cigarette, and even though Hongbin has never been a big fan of weed, he takes some drags. There were a few times in the past when he managed to feel at least something that caused him to laugh until he retched, but more often than not, he only felt a slight pressure in his skull that made his vision sluggish and the burning sensation in his eyes that left him with no choice but to close them.

It takes the thing some time to kick in, but when it does, Hongbin can’t stop giggling while he nuzzles Wonshik's shirt, enjoying the feeling of Wonshik's fingers in his hair as they card through the locks.

“Wonshik-ah,” Hongbin whispers when he can talk from the giggles.

“Mm.”

“Those guys are bad.”

“What guys?”

“The new neighbours.”

Wonshik moves, pulling away to be able to look at Hongbin. The whites of his eyes are very pink, and he looks sleepy, but his expression is hard. Hongbin averts his eyes.

“Did you talk to them again?”

“No, of course not,” Hongbin replies quickly. “I overheard two of them talking about us.”

“What did they say?”

“They said nasty things,” Hongbin mumbles, playing with a loose thread on Wonshik's shirt. He has no idea why he even brought up this topic in the first place, but he’s starting to realize just how big of a mistake it could be. “They said you didn’t love me. They said I was helpless and dependent on you.”

The silence is so long Hongbin is afraid Wonshik will snap and run over to the guys and threaten them again, but when he looks up at Wonshik, he only finds a small smile on his lips.

“Do you think I’d still be here if I didn’t love you, Bin-ah?” he asks. Hongbin only blinks at him with heavy eyelids, and Wonshik wraps an arm around Hongbin's middle, nails digging into the flesh of Hongbin's waist. “Of course you’re dependent on me, you’re only half a person without me, aren’t you?”

“I don’t even think I’m half,” Hongbin breathes, grabbing his own shirt above his chest with trembling hands, trying to soothe the pain in his heart.

“Mm,” Wonshik murmurs, releasing Hongbin to brace his knees beside Hongbin's hips, supporting himself on his arms. He ducks down and noses along the side of Hongbin's neck, sinking his teeth into his collarbone so hard it feels like he wants to break it, and Hongbin cries out, clenching his fists on the floor. “I’m here to make you whole,” Wonshik whispers into his cold skin.

Hongbin believes it all until he finds both of Wonshik's hands on his throat again, this time pressing down harder to the point Hongbin can’t concentrate on the pleasure of Wonshik fucking him but only on the fear that bubbles up inside his chest. He doesn’t want to die yet and he doesn’t want Wonshik to get hurt because he killed Hongbin, he can’t go to jail, he just _can’t_ suffer the consequences of Hongbin's death—

It’s when he’s already standing in the bathroom, freshly showered, with a towel around his hips, that he looks into the cracked mirror that distorts his features, and touches tender fingers to the dark red marks on his neck—some of them hickeys and bites, the others fingerprints—, realizing how broken he will look tomorrow. He will have to wear a scarf to hide the bluish black contusions, it’ll hurt to swallow more than it does now, maybe even breathing will be harder.

He looks down at his body: thin, pale, shaky. It’s peppered with new and old, fading and freshly forming injuries—bruises, scratches, cuts and abrasions. He glances back up at the mirror, and for the first time in months or even years, he looks into his own eyes (framed by dark grey circles), and notices the lack of shine. It’s like he’s blind.

It’s like his soul got sucked out of him and his body was beaten up in the cruellest of ways.

And something finally clicks in him.


	4. Bullet #4

Wonshik told him not to get out of the flat while he was gone, so Hongbin hasn’t been outside for the last four days.

He cleaned the place three times since Wonshik has been gone, not finding anything else to busy himself with. Wonshik doesn’t let him use his laptop, they have no TV or radio, his phone’s WIFI has long been broken, he has no mobile data. He’s slowly running out of food, so he saves half of the only pack of instant noodles he has for tomorrow, and if he needs to stay at home more, he’ll come up with something. Ordering food is out of the question—Wonshik clearly stated he did not want Hongbin to open the door for anybody, but he’ll solve the problem.

He had to call into work to take the rest of the week off, and he’s incredibly worried that he’ll get fired once he can go back, but Wonshik told him to stay put, so he will. Wonshik always has reasons, he just doesn’t share them with Hongbin. And that should be okay.

He sits on the mattress with his knees pulled up and an old, boring novel he bought for ₩1500 at a second-hand book stand four or five years ago set against his thighs. That was the only book on their bookshelf in the first flat Wonshik and he rented, and they used to joke about it a lot, how pretentious their place looked trying to appear sophisticated with a huge bookshelf and a single damaged, cheap book sitting on it. The book is the only thing he managed to rescue from their first flat back in Taebaek before Wonshik came up with the idea of moving to Seoul for a better, more exciting future, thus forcing them to sell everything that wasn’t vital so they could pay for this ratty flat near downtown.

Sometimes Hongbin thinks about their old place back in Taebaek where they had a decent double bed, a solid dining table, the bookshelf, several rugs, shades on the lamps; where Hongbin didn’t have to take two jobs and still starve, and where Wonshik spent almost too much time at home and Hongbin never got bruised and his eyes always sparkled with happiness.

He feels his throat clench and his stomach cramp, his eyes prickling with tears ready to be shed.

But then the doorbell rings.

Hongbin ignores it at first, although he’s impossibly scared—no one ever visits them. The ringing only ceases when several fists start banging on the door.

“Hongbin!” someone yells very loudly. It doesn’t sound like Wonshik at all. “Hongbin, open the door! Are you in there?”

“Are you okay?” someone else shouts.

The doorbell rings again.

“Hongbin, if you’re in there, please, open the door for us.” The first voice says now, almost begging.

“It’s Sanghyuk and Hakyeon. Your neighbours. You remember us, right?”

Hongbin's heart is now threatening to burst out of his chest as he cautiously stands up from the mattress. He worries his lower lip between his teeth so hard he draws blood, the coppery liquid trickling into his mouth, making him feel sick.

“Fuck it, I’m going in.”

“Sanghyuk, how exactly—”

Hongbin first thinks it’s an explosion, and he almost screams when he hears the loud sound of the door being kicked open and slamming against the nearest wall. He has no time to move anywhere before Sanghyuk and Hakyeon run into the flat, stopping in the doorway of the bedroom.

“Get out,” Hongbin croaks in a voice not used in a long time. His throat also hurts from the last time Wonshik went too hard on him, and that reminds him of the bruises, so he tries to cover his neck with his fingers as subtly as possible, but Hakyeon's eyes turn wide anyway as he slaps a hand over his lips.

“Oh my God,” he mumbles when he releases his mouth. He walks past Sanghyuk up to Hongbin with his eyes shining wetly. “Oh my God, Hongbin, are you all right?”

“Get out of here,” Hongbin rasps, jumping out of Hakyeon's way. “Both of you. Leave me alone.”

“You haven’t been out for four days,” Sanghyuk says, his gaze lingering on Hongbin's fingers on his neck.

“Are you spying on me?!” Hongbin asks hysterically, looking around for possible weapons to protect himself with, but finding nothing. “How do you know my name?”

“Mail box,” Hakyeon says. “We’ve been worried about you, Hongbin.”

“You don’t know me. Why are you worried about someone you don’t even know? Mind your own fucking business.”

“You haven’t been out for four days!” Sanghyuk yells, and Hongbin stares at him, alarmed.

This is a threat he can’t fight on his own. He needs Wonshik more than he needs air.

The realization makes him finally break, the dry skin of his face twinging from the tears.

“Hongbin, listen,” Hakyeon says softly, sniffling as if it’s his fucking place to cry, “do you have anything to eat? You look so— you look so thin.”

“Mind your own business,” Hongbin replies, his voice cracking. He glances down at the dingy floorboards.

“Where’s Wonshik?” Sanghyuk asks.

“Mind your own— mind your own business.”

Hongbin's chest breaks. It feels like an axe thrown right into his sternum, and he has no idea what has such an effect on him. Maybe it’s Sanghyuk and Hakyeon reminding him that Wonshik isn’t here and that he doesn’t know when he’s coming back, maybe it’s how lonely he’s felt these past days, maybe it’s something entirely different—the fact that people are actually worried about him. No one has been worried about him since he cut all connections with his family and friends, since he has been with Wonshik. No one. Not even Wonshik himself.

He staggers backwards to the wall, sliding down against it, the salty taste of his tears burning his tongue.

“M-mind your own b-business,” he stammers, pulling his knees up, burying his face in them, taking huge gulps from the air, sobbing like he never did in his life. “Mind your own business. Mind your own business. Mind— mind your own business.”

There are long and warm arms wrapped in nice-smelling sleeves around him, timidly pulling him close. Hongbin soon stops repeating the mantra, the crying taking over. A hand caresses the back of his neck, the bumps of his vertebrae, like the fingers are trying to examine just how _thin_ he is, as Hakyeon said.

“Hongbin,” Sanghyuk says very close to his ear, and Hongbin realizes it’s Sanghyuk embracing him. “Where’s Wonshik?”

“He went away,” Hongbin mutters. “He never tells me where he goes.”

“Do you know when he’s coming back?”

“No. He never tells me about that either.”

“Did he lock you up?”

“No,” Hongbin takes a deep breath, and lifts his head. Hakyeon is sitting on the mattress, tears streaking his face, his chin quivering lightly. Hongbin can’t even imagine how a stranger can have such strong feelings for another stranger, how anybody could feel so sorry for him. From an outsider’s point of view, it would look like Hakyeon's watching his own little brother. Hongbin turns to Sanghyuk. “He told me not to go outside and not to let anyone in.”

“But—” Hakyeon mumbles, standing up, shuffling closer to them, and sitting down in front of Hongbin. “But he’s not here. And you were hungry. Why didn’t you just go and buy some groceries? Why didn’t you order food? Why didn’t you ask for food from us?”

“He told me,” Hongbin replies. “He told me to stay here. He told me not to open the door. He told me not to talk to anybody.”

“But he’s not here!” Hakyeon snaps. “He wouldn’t have known! What if he never even comes back? Would you have starved to death in here then?”

“He will come back,” Hongbin whispers, fresh tears blurring his vision. “He always comes back, he loves me, he— he needs to make me whole.”

Sanghyuk and Hakyeon share a look, and then Sanghyuk's arms shift around Hongbin, holding him by his chest. “Okay, Hongbin, we’ll take you to our place—”

“I can’t go anywhere!” Hongbin protests and tries to weakly push Sanghyuk away, but the boy is a lot stronger than him, so he easily pulls Hongbin up.

“We’ll take you to our place and you’ll get something to eat, okay?” Sanghyuk asks.

“If Wonshik doesn’t find me here—”

“The door’s broken,” Hakyeon interjects while he stands up as well, wiping his face with the sleeve of his sweater. “If Wonshik gets back before you, we’ll tell him you came over because someone tried to break into your place.”

“That’s not going to work,” Hongbin shakes his head. “He won’t buy that.”

“We’ve got a disgusting amount of jjajangmyeon,” Sanghyuk says, keeping Hongbin on his feet, smiling down at him. Hongbin doesn’t mean to swallow so loudly, but it happens nevertheless. Sanghyuk's smile turns wider. “That’s right. Our fridge is full of it.”

Hongbin looks around the flat, and finally nods. He unfolds Sanghyuk's arms around him, steps to the nightstand to take his phone, and then looks up at the two young men. Sanghyuk puts a hand on his back, and guides him out of the flat with Hakyeon walking in front.


	5. Bullet #5

Hongbin awakes with a start.

Wonshik is tearing his own clothes off in the middle of the bedroom, apparently outraged. He was away for an entire week, and Hongbin spent two days over at the four boys’ place, sleeping on the couch until Sanghyuk and Hakyeon managed to convince Taekwoon to repair his door.

Now Wonshik is back, throwing his clothes into the corner, flopping down on the mattress in only his boxer briefs. He smells of cigarette smoke, alcohol, sweat and _city_ , and though Hongbin found these lovely some days ago, he can’t find his home in them now. He stares at Wonshik in the orange light of the streetlamp in front of the window, and Wonshik blinks at him slowly.

“No complaints?” he asks, smiling, lifting his arm and brushing his fingers over Hongbin's neck. The few bruises still left on his skin are already yellow.

Hongbin doesn’t know how he didn’t see this before—Wonshik switching from terrifying to endearing, from burning fire to soothing balm in a split second.

“I missed you,” Hongbin says quietly, honestly.

“You did, huh?” Wonshik chuckles, pressing a kiss to Hongbin's nose. “Were you bored?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to do something about that?”

And already his hand slides down on Hongbin's throat to his chest, dragging down to creep under his T-shirt and scrape at his stomach, Wonshik's mouth pressed to Hongbin's Adam’s apple.

“I’m— I’m not sure if I want this right now. Wonshik.”

Wonshik stills, breathing onto Hongbin's skin, like a beast waiting for its prey to show another sign of life.

“You don’t want me?” he asks.

“I do, I want you, Wonshik, I’m just… I’m sleepy, you know? Just a little bit tired.”

Wonshik laughs.

“You’ll sleep better after,” he says, and resumes kissing Hongbin's throat, his hand moving from his stomach into his underwear. “I want to make you feel good, Bin-ah. Will you let me?”

Hongbin shuts his eyes tight, shaky arms wrapping around Wonshik's shoulders, fingers carding through his hair. He presses a careful kiss to Wonshik's hairline, and whispers into it: “Yes, I will.”


	6. Bullet #6

It starts very slowly.

At first, Hongbin only says hello to the boys two doors away when he bumps into them on the corridor. Then, they ask him if he’s okay, and he says yes. After that, he wishes them a good day. He turns down several lunch and dinner invitations, but always nods when Hakyeon whispers ‘take care’ to him so quietly not only Wonshik inside the flat but Hongbin on the other end of the corridor can’t hear it.

Even though he’s incredibly grateful to the guys who appear to watch him like a group of guardian angels, the guilt he feels about deceiving Wonshik gnaws at his insides until he finds himself sitting by the toilet, dry-heaving and crying so hard the collar of his shirt gets soaked.

Nevertheless, he sits down on the stairs when Sanghyuk offers him a seat, a bag of trash set by his feet so he can pretend to be taking it out if Wonshik comes home while they’re there.

They don’t talk for a long, long time. Hongbin stares down at his trembling hands on his knees and Sanghyuk watches the windows in front of them. It’s not exactly uncomfortable, but Hongbin is jittery, and he wants to say something, but every time he would open his mouth, his throat clenches. Soon, a hand drifts into his peripheral vision, hovering above his own, and Hongbin glances up at Sanghyuk. The boy is looking at him questioningly, asking for permission, and Hongbin blinks back down. Sanghyuk's hand is bigger than his and a lot warmer, too, it covers his fingers and somewhat soothes the shaking.

“He doesn’t know he’s hurting me,” Hongbin mutters, not even really thinking about uttering those words. “He can see— the marks. But he doesn’t know how painful they are, he didn’t like getting them at the very beginning, so I never did those things to him. He… he thinks they’re just pretty, colourful things on me that show others that we belong together. Like couple rings and couple shirts, and all that stuff. And when we fight… he can’t really manage his anger. He doesn’t apologise afterwards, but I think it’s only because I’ve always done it for him and now he feels it’s natural. It’s not his fault.”

Hongbin lets out a sigh and continues staring at Sanghyuk's hand on his. His skin is a pale pink colour, so much different from Hongbin's ashy one. It looks and feels so soft, his bones aren’t poking through like Hongbin's are. He feels envious, but at the same time he sort of just wants Sanghyuk to hold his hand forever.

“It’s not only the physical part that’s so fucking scary about this, Hongbin,” Sanghyuk says finally, and Hongbin peers up at him. Sanghyuk is still staring ahead. “You’re locked up in a mental jail. And you’ve been locked up for years.”

“He lets me do things,” Hongbin whispers, averting his eyes.

“Like what?”

“I… I do whatever I want when I’m alone at home.”

“Ah, like when he told you to stay indoors for a week and you almost starved to death?” Sanghyuk snorts, turning to Hongbin. Hongbin wants to pull his hand away and go back in, he doesn’t need anyone to judge him, he thought Sanghyuk was a nice guy listening to whatever he had to say, but then Sanghyuk's grip tightens around his fingers—not at all the way Wonshik's does around his neck, but gently, squeezing lightly, his thumb absently rubbing the back of Hongbin's hand. “That’s not doing _whatever you want_ , Hongbin. He has full control over you and he pays your obedience back with punishment you never deserved. I don’t know if it’s because he thinks that’s how it’s supposed to work, if he thinks you like it or if he’s just a real psycho, but this is called _abuse_.”

“He loves me, he’s not abusing me.” Hongbin feels his lower lip quiver, so he bites down on it.

“He loves you, yet he shoves you away, imprisons you, strangles you—”

“You don’t know anything about those.”

“I saw the bruises on your neck, Hongbin!” Hongbin looks quickly at Sanghyuk, and Sanghyuk continues less loudly: “I saw your bruises and I’m actually surprised your neck hasn’t got broken yet. It’s been two months since I moved here, but I’ve been watching you get thinner and thinner, your dark circles get bigger and bigger, your skin get paler… These are not the signs of someone being one hundred per cent content with their life. God, if I just think about how many years it’s been since you’ve been wasting away I feel like sobbing like Hakyeon whenever he looks at you.”

“It’s not always been like this.”

“What went wrong, then?”

Hongbin presses the heel of his free hand on his eyes a few times, physically trying to push the tears back. It seems to work for now. “We grew up together and started dating quite early, when we were fifteen, I think? Maybe he was already sixteen. It was the kind of teenage love you see all around, nothing very serious. But then we got out of high school and thought it would be nice to start real life right away. We could save up some money from part-time jobs back in high school, so we could rent a place, and we both started to take every job we were qualified enough for to keep the flat. We worked from dawn to dusk and then a little more. We couldn’t spend much time together, but it was fine, we talked on the phone daily if we didn’t catch the other awake at home. We… we were happy. Tired, but happy.” Hongbin needs to take a deep breath and look up at the darkening sky to keep himself together. “Wonshik, he used to write songs. He really likes underground rap and I think he’s amazing at it himself as well as writing the melodies themselves. He also— he wrote some slower songs, too, used to sing them to me, and… and he was always so embarrassed about those, but as unbelievable as it sounds, his singing voice was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. I encouraged him to try sending them in to some studios so he might become successful—it was his dream, to make a career out of his music, and I always thought he had the potential.”

“He got rejected a lot,” Sanghyuk says, drawing the obvious conclusion.

“Yeah,” Hongbin nods. “He didn’t get too depressed at first though. He came up with the idea of moving to Seoul, where there are more opportunities. He said he’d become a successful songwriter and give me all his money so I can go to a nice college and become a vet as I’d wanted to.” Hongbin lets out a small laugh, remembering how gorgeously radiant Wonshik's face was when they talked about the interior design of Hongbin's very own office at a veterinary clinic. He’s so close to tears now they burn his oesophagus. “Living is obviously a lot more expensive here than it was back home, so we had to give up on lots of things. And with Wonshik getting rejected again and again and again… we had to give up more and more. His general mood started to drop with each day after the first year of our living here, and he tried to seek— solace in things only very desperate people turn to, and I never blamed him. It must have been hard for him to hear _no_ so many times and then come home to me parroting what probably sounded like empty words of comfort, and so…” Hongbin's tears finally spill, and he lowers his head as much as he can to hide them, even if he knows it’s no use. “I just— I feel like I’ve lost him to all the shit he takes. He goes away all the time to get them, to get money for them. I don’t know how, but I’m sure it’s not legal, and I—I’m so scared they’ll arrest him… he’s not himself, those things changed him completely, and he has these… m-mood swings and fits of anger and violence, and then he’s laughing and smiling but it’s all fake, and—”

“You want him to get better.” Sanghyuk says softly.

“Not because then he won’t hurt me,” Hongbin replies, sniffling, looking at Sanghyuk through his tears. “I’d take a lot more, I—I can take a lot more if that means he turns back into who he used to be, but… it seems like—it feels like it doesn’t matter how much more I try to endure, he keeps spiralling down. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know, I don’t know—”

Hongbin can’t say anything more. Sanghyuk hugs him and holds him through the crying, not saying anything, but that might be for the better. Hongbin has never talked about these things to anyone before, he didn’t know if he could. Everything seems a lot realer like this, it hurts much more like this, it’s scarier like this—but he accepted the hand that was reached out for him. He asked for help, in a way.


	7. Bullet #7

Wonshik is smoking, leaning out the window, and Hongbin watches him exhale the smoke that turns into visible breath in the winter night air a few moments later.

Hongbin pulls the waistband of his too large sweatpants higher on his hips, but it falls back low, the drawstring long lost. He also tugs the sleeves of his sweater over his fingers—and they stay so.

He pads to the window, lingering beside Wonshik, standing close to him.

“What’s that, babe?” Wonshik asks, watching the smoke float upwards.

“I love you,” Hongbin says.

Wonshik glances at him, smiling, leaning down to press a kiss to his lips. Hongbin's heart feels like it cramps with affection.

“Wonshik-ah,” Hongbin starts anxiously, “I’ve been wondering if you— if you still have your old songs on your laptop? The ones you wrote?”

Wonshik stays silent. He takes drag after drag from his cigarette, flicking the ash off, savouring the taste of the tobacco. Hongbin cracks his knuckles under the sweater sleeves; breathing gets hard.

Wonshik throws the butt away, and lets out a sigh.

“And why exactly have you been wondering?”

“I’ve been missing your voice,” Hongbin replies quietly. “And your melodies. I know you don’t want to sing to me anymore, but— I thought, if you still have your songs on your laptop, I could listen to them sometimes. When you aren’t here. Maybe.”

Hongbin yelps in surprise when Wonshik grabs his right wrist. His hold is painfully strong, Hongbin thinks his bones are crumbling in his grip. When Wonshik looks at him, his eyes are full of tears, his brow is furrowed in anger.

“Don’t you talk about those anymore, got it?” he hisses. “You won’t listen to them as long as I’m alive. Stop thinking about bullshit.”

He shoves Hongbin away by his wrist, and a minute later the walls rattle from the way he slams the front door after him.

If Hongbin knew he would go for a new dose of whatever kind of drug he feels like taking tonight— if he knew Wonshik would go and destroy himself some more, he probably wouldn’t have had the courage to ask. He hoped for a throwing against a wall, maybe a twisting of his arm, but not this. Not for Wonshik to leave to get some more of his shit. But at least now he’s fairly certain Wonshik still has the songs.

Wonshik's laptop is a very old, very loud model that gets overheated very quickly. It crashes on Hongbin three times before he finally manages to turn it on, looking up at the door every half a minute in a paranoid manner. It’s all good until he encounters the password field.

He stares blankly at the screen. He should have known—otherwise Wonshik wouldn’t have left it at home, he must have known Hongbin would try snooping around. He only dared leave it in the flat because he knew Hongbin had no chance to get anything out of it.

But Wonshik has always been forgetful. That’s why he set a reminder.

Hongbin clicks the reminder which reads: ‘ _the beginning of the most important. not that i could ever forget that._ ’

That doesn’t seem very helpful. Still, Hongbin racks his brains, turns the two sentences around in his mind until he’s pretty sure he’s looking for a date. What date? When Wonshik won the talent show back in middle school? Wrong. The day he first listened to his current favourite rapper’s songs? Hongbin doesn’t know when that was. Perhaps… The day they first kissed? Wrong. The day Wonshik asked him out? Wrong. The day they moved in together? Wrong.

Hongbin feels like screaming. He rubs at his face with his hands, willing his brain to try to come up with a solution, no matter how impossible it seems.

His only guesses are birthdays now, written in each and every form they can be written down.

Wonshik's own? Wrong. His mother’s? Wrong. His father’s? Wrong. His sister’s? Wrong. Hongbin's?

As soon as he presses Enter after _19930929_ , the laptop starts buzzing louder, and the welcome screen pops up.

He curls his fingers into the mattress, staring at the screen hypnotized. Wonshik—even now that every other one of his touches feels like an attempt to kill Hongbin… even now, his password is this, _he_ is the most important to Wonshik, still. He won’t try to convince himself it’s just Wonshik being lazy to change it. If he ever needed reassurance that Wonshik still loves him from the bottom of his heart, this is more than enough.

He easily finds Wonshik's folder full of his music: a lot of untitled tracks and some with working titles, text documents of lyrics, handwritten sheet music scanned in. Hongbin reaches out to lift up the corner of the mattress on his side and take the USB stick Sanghyuk lent him from under it. He sticks it into the laptop and it takes ages for it to recognize the new drive, and at least a million years to copy the entire folder onto it, but Hongbin manages, shutting down the computer immediately.

He takes the computer under the open window to make it cool down, and quickly puts on his shoes, hurrying to the front door, pressing his ear to it to hear if Wonshik is about to enter. The corridor sounds quiet though, so he opens the door and leaves it like that, running over to the boys’ place, ringing the doorbell like crazy.

“Coming, for God’s sake,” someone grumbles from inside, and the door opens to reveal a grumpy Jaehwan.

“Wonshik,” Hongbin says immediately, and Jaehwan looks utterly baffled. “He went away, and Sanghyuk told me— I could get on his laptop. Give this to him, okay, give this to Sanghyuk, I need to go back.”

Hongbin pushes the USB stick into Jaehwan's hand, and rushes back inside the flat.

Wonshik hasn’t come back yet.


	8. Bullet #8

Hongbin isn’t doing better—his nervousness increases with every passing week, the bruises on his body fading and renewing, but he’s hopeful.

Sanghyuk told him it would take a while, and though Hongbin said he didn’t care how long it took, he’s deeply regretted that by now. It doesn’t matter to him how long it takes, but it does matter to Wonshik who’s dropped a lot of weight recently and started to come home drunk more and more frequently, spending way too much time in the toilet, vomiting.

Hongbin has been trying to take care of him when Wonshik lets him; he prepares Wonshik's favourite foods, cutting down on his own meals, and he kneels beside Wonshik, pressing a wet towel to his forehead, and tucks him in when he’s too sloshed to find the mattress on his own.

He’s afraid something terrible will happen before Sanghyuk can keep his promise.

Wonshik is still fast asleep when Hongbin sneaks out of the flat, over to Sanghyuk's. Sanghyuk opens the door at the very moment Hongbin steps on the porch, and he has something in his hand, something like an envelope—

“I’ve got it,” he smiles happily, reaching out the letter to Hongbin. Hongbin snatches it from him, eyeing the sender’s data incredulously. “I just took it from you guys’ mail box, because I figured you wouldn’t go downstairs for it. I was about to slip it in under your door. They sent an email, too, so I didn’t open the letter, but yeah, he’s in. They don’t offer a lot at first, but if he gets back on track, this can be a huge opportunity.”

“You’ve made it,” Hongbin whispers, and looks up at Sanghyuk. “You’ve made it. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Hongbin wraps his arms around Sanghyuk's shoulders, and hugs him as close as he can.


	9. Remedy

He places the letter on the mattress beside Wonshik's head as carefully as he can, sitting on the floor, watching Wonshik's eyes move behind his closed eyelids, listening to his snores become less even. He sits there for an hour, maybe two, perhaps three. When Wonshik finally rolls onto his side and the edge of the envelope brushes the bridge of his nose, he slowly opens his bloodshot eyes. He blinks at Hongbin, confused when he sees Hongbin's bright smile. Then he glances down at the letter.

“What’s this shit?” he rasps, barely understandable.

“It’s a surprise,” Hongbin replies. “I did— some things you wouldn’t like. To get it. But I got it, and I hope you’ll be happy about it.”

“What even are you talking about?” Wonshik sends him an angry look as he pushes himself up into sitting position, reaching for the letter.

“Before you open it,” Hongbin says, and Wonshik's hands halt in the air, “Wonshik-ah. I love you.”

Wonshik narrows his eyes, turning the letter around in his hands to see who it came from. His eyes move along the lines, once, twice, three times, four times, he brings the envelope closer to his face to see if he’s reading it correctly. He glances at Hongbin for a second, then back at the letter, practically tearing the envelope apart as he opens it. Hongbin doesn’t know exactly what stands in it, but Wonshik's breathing becoming shaky, his eyes getting teary after the third read, the way he chews on the inside of his mouth, his trembling fingers, his surprised little huffs—they’re all more telling than any word.

When he’s done, he looks at Hongbin with his tears dripping from his chin, and Hongbin can’t stop grinning, right about to cry until his body dries out.

“It’s from a record label,” Wonshik breathes happily. “They want to release three of my songs, they— they want me to sign a contract with them.”

Hongbin nods, but is afraid to say anything. It would just turn into a hiccup or a scream.

“How?” Wonshik asks, turning back to the letter. “Why?”

“I got some help,” Hongbin mumbles, climbing on the mattress, covering Wonshik's slightly cold hand with his own, icy one. “Wonshik-ah, I love you, but you’ve changed, and… I don’t want you to suffer anymore. I asked for help, okay? We’ll get better—you’ll get better. And you’ll be a world-famous songwriter, and I—I’ll have my own veterinary clinic, okay? We’ll make it, all right?”

“Oh my God!” Wonshik cries out, letting go of the letter in favour of pulling Hongbin close, sobbing into the crook of his neck. “Oh my God, Bin-ah. Oh my God. You have no idea—” a kiss to Hongbin's shoulder, “you have no idea how much—” one to his neck, on an aching contusion, “how much it means to me, you—” mouthing up on Hongbin's jaw, jerky hands caressing his back gently, “you are my everything…” pecking his lips, “I love you— my everything. I love you, I love you.”

It’s the first time in months that Wonshik kisses him for so long, so softly, so sweetly. Sure, Wonshik's crying and Hongbin's grins make it somewhat clumsy, but it’s still the best Hongbin has ever received from Wonshik in seven years. It tastes like all the love songs Wonshik wrote for him, all the botched attempts at serenading them to Hongbin and both of them cracking up in the middle from the awkwardness of the situation, all the back hugs Hongbin received from Wonshik while cooking, all the healing kisses on Hongbin's accidentally cut fingers, all the times Wonshik fell asleep on Hongbin's shoulder in the middle of the most exciting films, all the times Hongbin got to drag his lips over Wonshik's skin, hardly touching in fear of hurting him.

They will get better.

Wonshik won’t be in pain anymore and Hongbin won’t get bruised again.

They will get better.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to talk to me about any of my stories or just vixx in general on [tumblr](http://hongbab.tumblr.com/), [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/hongbab) or [aff](http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1061753) ♡ please support me on [ko-fi.com](https://ko-fi.com/hongbab) if you can ♡


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